We provide complete, start-to-finish storage solutions that
enable you to efficiently manage your information. NBN designs,
integrates, and supports reliable, scalable and automated systems
for UNIX and Windows NT platforms and will assist you with every
phase of your storage management project.
Nothing But NET specializes in many different types of storage
solutions. Storage Area Networks, Network Attached Storage,
Direct Attached Storage and Backup solutions are just part of
the solutions that Nothing But NET offers. Our Technically certified
design specialist can find the most appropriate solutions for
your business.
Nothing But NET partners with leading providers such as Cisco,
IBM and HP to give our customers best of breed storage solutions.
Since our customer based is comprised of many different types
and sizes of customers, Nothing But NET can provide solutions
that fit your needs from Enterprise to SMB solutions.
Direct Attached Storage (DAS)
Direct attached storage is the term used to describe a storage
device that is directly attached to a host system. The simplest
example of DAS is the internal hard drive of a server computer,
though storage devices housed in an external box come under
this banner as well. DAS is still, by far, the most common method
of storing data for computer systems, however companies are
seeing a need to centralize storage and make it more manageable
for all systems instead of a select few.
Network Attached Storage (NAS)
Network Attached Storage, or NAS, is a data storage that uses
special devices connected directly to the network media. These
devices are designed to run as a file server with specialized
software that is tuned specifically for file serving. Some of
the NAS solutions that Nothing But NET offers allow for shadow
copies that can allow for quick backup of data on that device.
The beauty of the NAS structure is that it means that in an
environment with many servers running different operating systems,
storage of data can be centralized, as can the security, management,
and backup of the data. An increasing number of companies already
make use of NAS technology, however most but do not use it as
centralized or organized solution.
Some of the big advantages of NAS include the expandability;
need more storage space, add another NAS device and expand the
available storage. NAS also bring an extra level of fault tolerance
to the network. In a DAS environment, a server going down means
that the data that that server holds is no longer available.
With NAS, the data is still available on the network and accessible
by clients. Fault tolerant measures such as RAID, redundant
network cards, and power supplies, can be used to make sure
that the NAS device does not become a point of failure.
Storage Area Network (SAN)
A SAN is a network of storage devices that are connected to
each other and to a server, or cluster of servers, which act
as an access point to the SAN. SAN's use special switches connect
the devices via Fibre Channel technology. These switches, which
look a lot like a normal Ethernet networking switch, act as
the connectivity point for SAN's. This makes it possible for
devices to communicate with each other on a completely separate
network which brings with it many advantages. Consider, for
instance, the ability to back up every piece of data on your
network without having to to go across you local area network
with gigabytes of data. This is just one of the advantages of
a SAN which is making it a popular choice with companies today,
and is a reason why it is forecast to become the data storage
technology of choice in the coming years.
Another reason is the consolidation of storage. Imagine having
3 servers that have 1 TB of storage installed. One server has
80% available and the other two are short on available space
lets say 3% available. Using DAS you would have to add storage
to the two servers with 3% available space, yet you have plenty
of space as an organization due to the fact that you have one
server that has only used 20% of it’s storage. Wouldn’t
it be nice to be able to use that “extra storage”.
With a SAN you could use this. You can manage how much data
is allocated to each server.
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